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Archival photo of a group of students using photography equipment in front of MIT's Great DomeArchival photo of a group of students using photography equipment in front of MIT's Great Dome

To Look and Learn: The Creative Photography Laboratory at MITOngoing

One of the most innovative university teaching programs in the arts of its time, the Creative Photography Laboratory (CPL) at MIT trained students to use photography to think visually and as a means of creative expression.

Under its founding director, Minor White, the CPL became one of the country’s important venues for new photography, exhibiting the work of more than 600 photographers, while offering lectures and other programs, including a training center for aspiring photographers in Roxbury.

White’s vision for CPL was as a laboratory for teaching, not for training professional photographers. Photography served as a vehicle to intensify the students’ sensitivity to their visual environment, interpersonal relationships, and inner being.

Through photography, video interviews with former students and faculty, manuscript letters, and other records, discover the innovations and far-reaching influence of this unconventional curriculum and the photographer and educator behind it.


Please note that October 1, 2023 will be the final day to view this exhibition.

Located in the Ronald A. (1954) and Carol S. Kurtz Photography Gallery